After years of debate, Australian politician Peter Dutton has decided despite evidence to the contrary, that Grand Theft Auto causes real-world bad behavior. This is what he has named as the cause behind the recent claims of rape, assault, and sexual harassment within Australian parliament. Many of these claims are tied to Dutton’s own Australian Liberal Party (which is ironically the most right-leaning of Australia’s two main political parties).
For those that are not aware, Australia has recently been overwhelmed with multiple sexual assault claims. On February 15, a member of Dutton’s party alleged she had been raped by another member of the Liberal party inside parliament house. The victim, Brittany Higgins, has said that she was instructed to keep quiet about the issue to avoid backlash. In addition to this, the body of a 49-year-old woman was found. Her suicide occurred one day after she informed the police she would like to drop her investigation into the parliament member who raped her when she was just 16. After more incidents came to light, the Prime Minister of Australia, Scott Morrison refused to speak to the thousands of protestors that stood outside parliament. The Prime Minister later said he was proud that his country allowed such protests, insisting it was a win for democracy that the protestors were not “met with bullets.”
Now, to add to a long line of comments the Liberal party has made on these incidents, Minister of Defense Peter Dutton has said Grand Theft Auto is the root cause behind these issues. In an interview with Australian Media Dutton said the discussion should be redirected to address the effect of media on youths. "If you’re playing Grand Theft Auto, as a 13-year-old boy,” he said, “in that game, not just, you know, drive cars recklessly, you can go for a lap dance, you can go and shoot police.”
Peter Dutton does not exactly have the best political track record; this is unfortunately, not a one-time foot-in-mouth statement. Peter Dutton is known for being “strongly against” same-sex marriage, making racist statements, and potential efforts to cover up the true state of child abuse and rape in Nauru.
Naturally, many Australians were enraged by the statement. One young woman sarcastically replied that that must be “why she started giving lap dances.” Australians are right to be mad too, there are studies that challenge the idea that video games encourage bad behavior, and there are also many positive applications for video games. Some Australians might agree that video games can cause bad behavior, but the idea to direct the debate towards video games comes off as an attempt to distract Australians from more important matters.
Grand Theft Auto 5 is available now on PC, PS3, PS4, PS5, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S/X.